[slivym]

All of their demands seem pretty reasonable. It looks like the big gripe is that basically there's no real process in place for situations of misconduct in the office. To draw an analogy, this would be like Google not having a process to investigate and resolve site outages - it would be unthinkable, so why aren't they treating their organisation with the same rigor they treat their website.

[anon1252]

> there's no real process in place for situations of misconduct in the office.

There shouldn't be a "process" set by Google when it comes to sexual harassment, employees should be able to sue, that's the process,sexual harassment is a crime, they can't sue because Google force them into arbitration, which should be illegal for an employer to do that to an employee IMHO. this is a denial of justice.

[DanBC]

Employers have a duty of care to protect employees from harm in the workplace, and that includes protection from sexual abuse.

A lot stuff that counts as sexual harassment in the work place is not a crime.

You don't sue people who perpetrate crimes, you prosecute them. You're asking the victims of sexual harassment to persuade police to investigate and prosecutors to prosecute, and we know that they won't because we know they already don't.

You're also saying that no action can be taken without meeting the very high criminal burden of proof - that this thing happened beyond all reasonable doubt. That's going to leave harassers free to continue.

Maybe you just meant that sexual harassment is unlawful and employees have an existing remedy through civil courts, but this would be pisspoor management. If your company employs people who reduce productivity of others in the workforce by sexually harassing them it's in the organisation's best interest to manage those people so they stop the harassment or leave the company.

[claydavisss]

> Employers have a duty of care to protect employees from harm in the workplace

Yet common bullying and generally abusive workplaces are completely legal in California. You have the right to quit anytime, not much else.

[dragonwriter]

> Yet common bullying and generally abusive workplaces are completely legal in California.

They aren't covered by special, workplace-specific laws; there are, however generally-applicable civil laws that apply to them.

[slivym]

I think you're being too rigid. There are situations where one employee forces themselves on another at the christmas party. In that situation obviously the right call is to report it to the police and to have a disciplinary process internally for gross misconduct. But there's a million smaller examples of harassment that just need to be tackled by the organization. For example, if a man repeatedly makes comments about a woman's appearance, there needs to be a process where the woman can report that, be heard and have the issue addressed - it may be as simple as the employee's boss pulling the into a room and saying "stop being a creep". Not everything is solved by law suits.

However, obviously if things do escalate, access to the law should be guaranteed and the binding arbitration should clearly be dropped.

[majewsky]

It's odd how on one hand, the consensus here is that the quality of the work environment is very important to the productivity and the wellbeing of employees. And on the other hand, people argue that this type of misconduct should not be punished unless it's literally illegal.

[gedy]

I think a lot of the hesitation is people fear kangaroo courts and termination without due process due to false accusations or exaggerations. Much as the extra legal stuff that goes on in college.

[danharaj]

In other words, people here are more concerned with a phenomenon that is measurably rare relative to the downright epidemic that people are seeking to counteract. I think that says a lot about one's values.

[AnthonyMouse]

Whether a phenomenon is rare has a lot to do with how common it is. People getting shafted by kangaroo courts is rare when kangaroo courts are rare. What happens when you make kangaroo courts common?

[klagermkii]

What you have is an epidemic of powerful employees abusing their position to take advantage of junior employees.

What seems to be suggested to fight it are tools that would be extremely effective against other junior employees (even if the allegations are untrue), but only middlingly effective against the real problem of powerful employees.

That will understandably lead to push back from junior employees who fear abuse. Offer solutions which would primarily work against powerful employees and would be ineffective against other junior employees and I think there would be much more support.

[zaccus]

How rare false accusations are is completely irrelevant. If the goal is justice, then due process is non-negotiable. Period.

[gedy]

In my experience "cry-bullying" is not as rare as you make it out to be.

[sunir]

Prosecution is one method of deterring thieves from robbing my store blind. I have also tried locked doors, security cameras and not leaving the store unattended.

I like your argument that it is cheaper to just let people rob me blind and then burn time and energy catching them, prosecuting time, and hoping for a conviction as a deterrent.

With any luck using your system crime will magically disappear on it’s own.

I am going to put my fingers in my ears now and make noises and ignore the worlds problems. It is certainly easier to not take responsibility. Good advice.

[cjslep]

Comparing sexual assault to a store robbery in a tone of sarcasm is at best a poor judgement call.

I agree that assaulters need to take responsibility for their actions. However, when they don't, the law needs to be there to protect the victims.

[sunir]

I think it is poor judgment to create an organization that does nothing to secure its people from sexual harassment. Not sure why you would disagree but if that is what you intended I do not want to work for you.

[cjslep]

Youre being incredibly unfair: That's not at all what I said, and your post I responded to also made no claim along these lines. You're misrepresenting my and your past statements.

What we were talking about is ending forced arbitration (the "process" referred to by the person you responded to) so that the law can be used to protect victims. That doesn't mean protections at work suddenly go away. It also doesn't mean suddenly employers will let sexual harassment run rampant either. It's not a binary either-or choice at all. So why not all protections.

[sunir]

The post I replied to implied that the criminal justice system is the only solution to these problems:

"employees should be able to sue, that's the process,sexual harassment is a crime, they can't sue because Google force them into arbitration,"

Notwithstanding the unbelievable confusion of law in that post is a whole other conversation.

I argued that companies should also have a plan in place to prevent sexual harassment at work by using an analogy to robbery, also a crime, that we use preventative measures to stop despite there being a criminal system punishing robbery.

Your response was claiming I was expressing poor judgment for arguing that companies are responsible for not creating environments rife for sexual harassment.

"Comparing sexual assault to a store robbery in a tone of sarcasm is at best a poor judgement call."

I don't agree. I think it's a reasonable demonstration of the absurdity of the position I'm replying to.

I don't know what else you wrote, but that's what I replied to.

[kazagistar]

Only if the law can prove beyond reasonable doubt that a crime happened, which is often difficult and why it makes sense to metaphorically secure the premises through an internal HR process as well.

[dragonwriter]

> There shouldn't be a "process" set by Google when it comes to sexual harassment, employees should be able to sue, that's the process,

Except that, under the law, the company’s response (including the absence or inadequacy of any process) to certain situations is part of what determines if they are sexual harassment.

> sexual harassment is a crime

No, it's not, and if it were the process would not be for employees to sue, because crimes are prosecuted exclusively by the government in the U.S. legal system.

[HillaryBriss]

it's a different country, but ... in India in 2013 some types of sexual harassment were deemed criminal and punishable by time in prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Law_(Amendment)_Act,_...

[dragonwriter]

In the US, many types of sexual harassment are also crimes, but sexual harassment, per se, is a particular civil wrong, not a crime.

[HillaryBriss]

yes. i understand.

also: some types of sexual harassment that are not crimes in the US are crimes in India.

[nixgeek]

That’s actually not true, it varies by state, but many allow private criminal prosecutions to occur.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution

[dragonwriter]

“Many” seems unwarranted (especially when it comes to prosecution of a charge rather than entry of a complaint or pursuit of an indictment), but, yes, that was an overgeneralization. But, it is by far the dominant rule.

[bdhess]

Many? From the list I count six where the wording implies that a prosecution can occur without permission from the executive branch.

[amanaplanacanal]

I wonder how often this actually happens? In any case this is interesting.

[Justsignedup]

forced arbitration has been the bane of combatting anything legally. it basically is now used to completely remove any employee or consumer ability to sue. This is used for literally everything. Every employer does this now, every software product, every hardware.

I don't understand how this is even acceptable.

[DannyBee]

Because it doesn't actually do that. Only in the u.s. do people believe that suing over anything and everything is an efficient or effective mechanism of justice

"Sue it out" is probably the least effective possible conflict resolution mechanism along almost any axis.

The underlying goal of arbitration is to ensure effective resolution of non-complex situations and reserve the courts for actually complex cases, instead of now, where they are used because people hope they can make a bunch of money.

The only thing I'm aware of is people complain of bias of arbitrators using the proxy of how often business wins relative to people in courts (with no evaluation of whether people should be winning as much as they do in court).

Otherwise I have seen nothing that suggests that arbitration is not in fact very effective and efficient at reducing the cost and time involved.

[Justsignedup]

the primary thing about arbitration

- it prevents class-action lawsuits

- it is funded typically by the company, and is very likely to agree with the company

Maybe suing constantly is an american thing, but if that is to be addressed it should be by congress not by individual companies wanting to circumvent civil law.

[module0000]

I'm not trying to troll you, but it's a voluntary "denial of justice". No one compels or coerces people to seek employment there. They apply, go through several interviews, and then voluntarily agree to whatever it is they agree to before day #1 of work. As long as people are willing to work there under XYZ conditions, people will continue to work there under XYZ conditions.

[CydeWeys]

By the same token, employees are allowed to advocate for change once they are working there.

[jimbokun]

People voluntarily entered into indentured servitude once upon a time, too.

[module0000]

They didn't have options - every single Google employee(past and present) has options. They selected this one, voluntarily. Indentured servitude is not a valid analogy.

[madmax96]

Most indentured servitude in the US was a voluntary agreement [1] although all such agreements are now illegal by the 13th amendment.

Also, there exist the concept of a so-called "unconscionable contract." I'm not saying this proposition is true, but I'm submitting for evaluation: is the act of submitting to private investigation processes that may be used as evidence against you in civil or criminal courts unconscionable?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude_in_the_...

[jimbokun]

They do not have any options where forced arbitration is not one of the conditions. Pretty much every corporation does this, so there are no realistic options for avoiding it.

There may be a very small number of cases where an employee successfully negotiated against this clause, but it probably requires the candidate to be a true outlier in terms of talent and skill set for the company to even consider it.

[sjg007]

Maybe they should unionize? They could then elect representatives and have a seat at the table with management.

[ardy42]

> Maybe they should unionize? They could then elect representatives and have a seat at the table with management.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_VL4gqrCHc&t=392

But if they did that, they be giving up control over their careers and the right to deal with their problems with their supervisors, one on one. /s

[gcc1993]

They definitely have a process in place (they advertise their process a lot during orientation) but the demands I saw explicitly say they aren't good enough.

[Udik]

> this would be like Google not having a process to investigate and resolve site outages - it would be unthinkable, so why aren't they treating their organisation with the same rigor they treat their website.

Because, Google is a company that builds products. I am interested in their products and in the fact that their products work, not much in the behaviour of the people building them- given the fact that they are located in a supposedly civilized country anyway, where serious misconducts should be prosecuted by law. The internal squabbles and complaints of the company are of very little relevance for their users, as it should be.

[slivym]

It's worth noting that one of their demands is dropping the binding arbitration that essentially forces employees to forgo their right to legal recourse for civil matters. Not every instance of unacceptable behaviour is a criminal matter.

[victoriasun]

If you're not interested in the internal workings of Google, then why bother? There are people who are, and they are the ones driving this conversation. Let them spend their energy and effort figuring it out while you enjoy the result of their work.

[Udik]

> why bother?

Because I'm a bit annoyed by what seems to me a growing push towards confusing the judgement of someone's work with their moral qualities. I see it as fundamentally anti-intellectual, as it strives to bring extraneous criteria in the evaluation of what should stand and be judged on its own. A scientific theory or a work of art aren't less valuable because their authors or proponents are or aren't communists, or arians; a literary masterpiece isn't diminished by the fact that its author was an anti-semite, or sadist; a great movie director remains a great director even if she did horrible things in her private life. Very little of our past science and philosophy and arts would still be standing if we were to apply these criteria, and I very strongly doubt we'd gain something better. Every single time "political" criteria have been used to judge the value of intellectual products, it's been the indicator of serious troubles, both for the society doing it and for the overall quality of the disciplines.

[victoriasun]

That is your personal choice, and is fine. But I think you can happily coexist with these other people:

- Those who care about influencing their culture and want to do what they can to change it.

- Those who are concerned with where their money goes and whether or not they think that that is the most effective use of their money.

Feel free to ignore the concerns of those groups and do what you want. But I don't think that wading into a conversation you fundamentally don't want to be a part of is effective.

[Udik]

> I don't think that wading into a conversation you fundamentally don't want to be a part of...

I was replying to a comment that claimed that

"no real process in place for situations of misconduct in the office [..] would be like Google not having a process to investigate and resolve site outages - it would be unthinkable"

This to me is clearly a confusion between two completely different things: what Google produces, and what are Google's internal ethics. iPhones are not worse products because working with Steve Jobs was a nightmare. I value the distinction.

[EthanHeilman]

>I see it as fundamentally anti-intellectual, as it strives to bring extraneous criteria in the evaluation of what should stand and be judged on its own. A scientific theory or a work of art aren't less valuable because their authors or proponents are or aren't communists

The ethics of science does exactly this. A common question which has been asked for much of the 20th Century is: should we use scientific results that are the product of non-consensual human experimentation. an extreme but often used example experiments that were carried out by the Nazis at concentration camps. Outside of science consider the debate over the works of Wagner [0], Knut Hamson [1], or Heidegger [2]. Ethics matters when judging intellectual output. For

These are fundamental questions of ethics which have a long intellectual history of debate and discussion. You are welcome to hold your own opinions on them, but I don't think the way in which you are framing the debate is helpful, e.g. "a growing push", "confusing the judgement", "fundamentally anti-intellectual", etc... Ethical questions which have received this much thoughtful discussion and examination should be treated with respect.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_controversies

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/books/28hams.html

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger_and_Nazism#Th...